金沢Kanazawa’s history begins in 1546, when a temple town
formed around Kanazawa Mido, a branch temple of the
Osaka Honganji temple. The ruling Ikko sect was finallyoverthrown in 1580 by Sakuma Morimasa, a retainer of thewarlord Shibata Katsuie, and a castle was built on the temple
site, turning the former temple town into a castle town.

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Explore Kanazawa
in the Days of the Samurai

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Old Castle Town Map

D0Strolling among the temples and tea houses

200m

Higashiyama district

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Shibata Katsuie clashed with Toyotomi Hideyoshi in Omi
in 1583, following Oda Nobunaga’s death. Morimasa,
Katsuie’s nephew, also joined the battle as a commander
on Katsuie’s side, but after his defeat at the Battle of
Shizugatake, he was executed at Kyoto’s infamous
Rokujogawara execution ground. Hideyoshi then granted
his vassal Maeda Toshiie Kanazawa Castle as reward forbringing the Hokuriku region under his dominion. Toshiie
moved to Kanazawa Castle in April 1583. For the 286
years from that date right up until 1869, the castle washome to the Maeda family, while Kanazawa prospered as
the famous “Kaga Million-Bushels” castle town.

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Kanazawa experienced a construction boom from the endof the 16 t h to the first half of the 17 t h century. The
residences of higher-ranked retainers were moved within
the inner moat once it was created in 1599, and houses
which had been built before the 1611 formal allocation ofland were re-measured and re-allotted under the new
regulations, moving them out from the inner moat area.

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Strolling through the samurai quarter

About this map
This map was drawn around 1857, putting it in the final
years of the Edo period. Kanazawa has been free ofdamage by war or major natural disasters, which is whyeven today we can find our way around town using maps
from hundreds of years ago. With this old map in hand,
the Kanazawa of 150 years ago awaits your exploration.
●Some areas of the map are not the same as the Edo
period due to subsequent construction of main roads
or the subdivision of land.
●Many Shinto shrines, Buddhist temples, waterways,
slopes and more remain from the days of the samurai,
and can still be found exactly where the old map
shows them.
●The back streets in particular still retain the old layoutof the castle town.

Preserving traditional townscapes

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D Kanazawa Station

Hikoso Ohashi
BridgeHigashiyama district

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Kazue-machi
Chaya District

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RokumaiWest Outer Moat (part of Kuratsuki Waterway)

This was constructed by the famous“Christian General” Takayama Ukon
when the Maedas were suspected by
Tokugawa Ieyasu of plotting against
him in 1599, to serve as a western outerline of defense for the castle. The nearly
3 km long moat runs from Honda-machi
3-chome to Nagamachi, where it is
known as the Kuratsuki Waterway, and Korinbo Street Garden
ends in the Asanogawa River. The embankments on the inner side wereplanted with bamboo and other vegetation, forming a green belt.

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East Inner Moat

This was constructed by the
famous “Christian General”
Takayama Ukon when the
Maedas were suspected by
Tokugawa Ieyasu of plotting
against him in 1599, to serve
as a eastern inner line ofdefense for the castle. The
moat runs for about 1.3 km
from Kojiridani-saka to the Kareki-Bashi bridge site
Asanogawa river through Hashiba-cho. The embankments on the innerside were planted with bamboo and other vegetation, forming a green
belt.

Utatsuyama Temple District
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West Inner Moat 3
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Omi-cho Market

Hashiba

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Legend3

1Samurai residences(white areas)

Nagamachi

Buddhist temples or Shinto shrines(orange areas)

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Korinbo
Hirosaka

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A Kenrokuen Garden

Townspeople residences (dark brown areas)

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Oyama Jinja Shrine

East Outer Moat

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Kanazawa Castle Park

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Minami-cho

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BridgeEas

Nagamachi district

Motoguruma

Higashi Chaya District

ner Mooat

A ～ D Present-day sites

Katamachi

This was constructedby the famous“Christian General”
Takayama Ukon when
the Maedas weresuspected by Tokugawa
Ieyasu of plotting
against him in 1599, toserve as a eastern outerline of defense for the
castle. The moat flows
Gentarogawa canal confluence
for some 1.4 km from
Hassaka to the Asanogawa river through Zaimoku-cho. The
embankments on the inner side were planted with bamboo and othervegetation, forming a green belt.

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Nishi Chaya District

Saigawa Ohashi
BridgeTaThis old map shows Kanazawa circa 1857. Thanks to not
being bombed during World War II nor having suffered
any major natural disasters, the old town layout is still seen
today. The large blank area in the middle is Kanazawa
Castle. The size of the castle and Kenrokuen remain almost
unchanged. The white areas with names written in
Japanese show individual samurai residences. The red dotson some of these depict houses belonging to middleranking samurai of high enough rank to have their own
vassals. The red lines are private roads in residential areasfor vassals of higher-ranked samurai, those who would
command in battle. The orange areas show Buddhist
temples or Shinto shrines. Those connected with the
Maeda family are located southeast from the castle. The
dark brown areas are where the townspeople (merchants
and artisans) lived. The gray/black areas are the residential
areas for lower-ranked samurai, who lived collected into
groups. The green areas show the trees and vegetation atop
the earth embankments that ran alongside the moats andwaterways, shown in blue. Today, these green zones havelargely been converted into housing and shops.

This was constructed by the famous“Christian General” Takayama Ukon
when the Maedas were suspected by
Tokugawa Ieyasu of plotting against
him in 1599, to serve as a western
inner line of defense for the castle. The
fortifications used a moat and earth
embankment system, and stretchedsome 1.6 km from Oyama Shrine to
Ryokusuien park
the Asanogawa River via Owari-cho.
A short section that looks as it would have originally can be seen in the
Ryokusuien park by Kazue-machi, near the Asanogawa River end.

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Kanazawa Today

Major fires in 1631 and 1635 provided a chance to practicemore modern urban planning. Following these two fires,sweeping changes were made to the entire layout, with
districts like Minami-cho and Tsutsumi-machi being
relocated further west, beyond the inner moat area. The
expansion of the castle town was almost complete by thelatter half of the 17th century. Samurai residences occupied
roughly three-quarters of Kanazawa, while townsmen
housing covered the remaining quarter.

West Inner Moat

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East In

Credits: Cover, top: Kanazawa City / Cover, bottom: Kanazawa Jokazu Byobu, Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of History
Edo-period map: Kanazawa Joka Ezu, Oga Collection, Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of History
Photo credits: Kanazawa Cityｉy2017.35

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Local Revitalization by Utilizing the Advantage ofCultural Heritage

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City of Kanazawa 1-1-1 Hirosaka, Kanazawa, Ishikawa 920-8577 JAPAN
Tel:076-220-2194

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Tourism Policy Section,3

oshInquiries

In 1616, the main road out to the town of Miyakoshi(present-day Kanaiwa, Kanazawa City) was straightened.
This was a measure to cope with the increasing numbers ofsamurai and townspeople, and to improve transportation
for goods and resources. In 1620, improvements were doneon the Asano River in a bid to encourage the transportationof timber and other goods by boat between Miyakoshi and
Kanazawa.

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Tatsumi Waterway

In 1632, following a major fire theprevious year, Lord Maeda
Toshitsune ordered the constructionof a waterway by diverting waterfrom the river to the castle. Alongwith Tamagawa Aqueduct in Tokyoand the Hakone Canal in eastern
Shizuoka Prefecture, this waterway
is one of the oldest in Japan. The
winding streams of Kenrokuen are Stone marker in Tobiume-cho
supplied from the Tatsumi Waterway. An almost unchanged 8.7 km
section of the full 11 km waterway from the Kami-Tatsumi-machi sluicegate to Kenrokuen was made a National Historic Site in 2010.

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Nagamachi district

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Kanazawa’ s streetscapes, which have never known war,
are some of the best-preserved anywhere in Japan. The
traditional streets of Old Japan are particularly well preserved in the Higashiyama Geisha District, the foothillsof Utatsuyama, the Kazuemachi Geisha District, and theTeramachi district. These four areas have been designatedas National Important Preservation Districts for Groupsof Historic Buildings.
In addition to the areas designated by the national government, Kanazawa City itself designates a further nine
areas as Small Townscape Preservation Districts.

Also in 1611, a pilgrimage path was constructed to
Nodayama, where Maeda Toshiie was buried. The roads
running along the Sai River banks were planted in chestnut
and persimmon trees. At the same time, the Buddhist
temples that had been scattered throughout the city werealso relocated. All temples, other than Ikko sect ones, weremoved south to Izumino or north to the western foot of Mt.
Utatsu. These relocated temples, in addition to a group of
temples already on the Kodatsuno ridge, created threemajor groups of temples, forming a strategically crucial
boundary at the bases of the hills surrounding the castle
town. This relocation of temples was carried out up toaround 1660. The main purpose of this relocation effort
was defense from external enemies, as was often the casein other castle towns. At the same time, the Ikko temples
were brought within the castle town, and the surrounding
non-Ikko temples were tasked with keeping a watch on
them. This was designed to prevent any further uprisingsby the Ikko sect, which had ruled the area for nearly ahundred years before their downfall in 1580.

The present sluice gate is on
the right bank of the
Saigawa river, upstream
near Sakurabashi Bridge.
Water flows through aculvert under the river bank,and into an open conduit
upstream of Shinbashi
Stone marker beside the Nomura Samurai House Bridge. This waterway thenflows through the Nagamachi Bukeyashiki area to the mouth of the
Saigawa river, covering a distance of about 10 km. This waterway isbelieved to have been used for carrying timbers to the castle site when
Kanazawa Castle was being built.

2ｉOnosho Waterway

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Teramachi Temple District

Ishibiki 1-chome

Kodatsuno Temple District

Supervision: Takanori Hasegawa ● Professor, Department of International
Liberal Arts, Faculty of Future Creation, Hokuriku University. His major is Japanesecultural history (knowledge reality) and cultural resource studies. After working as
a curator at the Ishikawa Prefectural Regional Museum of History and a curatorial
specialist at the Ishikawa Prefectural History Museum, he has been at Hokuriku
University since April 2007. He is a member of the Japan Society of Ancient
Letters, Conservation and Conservation of Cultural Properties, Cultural Resource
Association, Japanese Pharmaceutical History Association, and the Event Society.

Editing cooperation: Ryuzo Kigoshi ● Director, Kanazawa Castle ResearchInstitute, Ishikawa Prefecture. His specialty is the history of early modern Japan(clan government, castle towns, Japan Sea shipping). Past posts include the
Ishikawa Prefectural Board of Education Cultural Property Protection Division,and researcher and teacher at the Sea of Japan Cultural Research Laboratory,
Faculty of Letters, Kanazawa University. Currently member of the Kanazawa
City History Special Committee and the Regional History Research Council.

Translation: Chieko Homma ● Part-time Instructer at Hokuriku
University. She has worked for travel agents as a tour coordinator, andas a interpreter at international conferences. She is a member of the
Association for Teaching English through Movies.

Translation: Jeremy Phillipps ● Assistant Professor, Faculty of LiberalStudies, Kanazawa University. Resident in Kanazawa since 1992, his
research has focused on Kanazawa's urban history in the modern era.

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Utasu Jinja Shrine (Hachiman Shrine)
1076-252-8826 【 MAP“Higashiyama”A-2 】

Strolling among the temples and tea houses

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Higashiyama district
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1076-231-7210 【 MAP“Nagamachi”B-2 】

This shrine was founded in 1873 by former Kaga retainers on the groundsof the old Kanaya Palace of Kanazawa Castle, a separate area across themoat that was used as a retirement villa by former clan lords. The shrine
was dedicated to Lord Maeda Toshiie, the first lord of the Kaga Maeda
clan, and his wife Matsu, with
Toshiie’s spirit deity being transferredfrom Utasu Hachimangu Shrine. The
three-story shrine gate, dating from
1875, has been designated as anational Important Cultural Property.

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4Kanazawa Bunka Hall

【 MAP“Nagamachi”
B-2 】

Site of the Maeda Chikara/Imaeda Residences
These two families, with incomes of 2,400 koku and 14,000 koku
respectively, were of “hitomochi” rank, one rank below the senioradvisors.

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Nagamachi district

Approximately 1.6 km from 1 to 5

Higashiyama district

9(Includes approximately 300 stair steps)

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Tamagawa Park, Mitani Sangyo Co. Ltd.

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Higashiyama

5【 MAP“Nagamachi”
B-2 】

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The Fourth High School
Memorial Museum of Cultural Exchange

4Ashigaru Shiryokan Museum
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Nomura Samurai House

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Kazue-machi Chaya District

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Owari-cho

Korinbo

Kaga Hanshi Takada-ke House

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What is a "Chayagai"?

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Asanogawa Ohashi Bridge
Hashiba

Hirosaka 2-chome

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Kenrokuen
GardenNagamachi【 MAP“Nagamachi”
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Hirosaka

Ume-no Hashi Bridge【 MAP“Nagamachi”
B-2 】
Katamachi 1-chome

Matsugae Ryokuchi Park 【 MAP“Nagamachi”Ｂ-1 】

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The Eastern geisha district is located in the Higashiyama area, near the rightbank of the Asanogawa River, while Kazue is along the left bank. The Western
district is located in Nomachi, just to the south of the Saigawa River.
These geisha districts offer the chance to see traditional Japanese architecture,with rows of houses with wooden lattices and black-glazed tiled roofs. As dusk
falls in these atmospheric streets, you might hear the strains of the shamisen or
the thump of taiko drums coming from the teahouses. The traditional arts of thegeisha, such as classical nagauta songs, dances, drums, and wooden flutes havebeen passed on through the generations since the days of the shogun.

LegendTenjin Bashi Bridgeive

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Katamachi

Existingr

10 Saigawa Jinja Shrine (Hokyuji Temple)

Kanazawa has three geisha districts, known as “chayagai” (teahouse district):the Higashi or “Eastern”, the Nishi or “Western,” and Kazue.

NHK-maeiga(Nakagawa Shikibu Residence Site)

KKR Hotel (Maeda Yojuro Residence Site)【 MAP“Higashiyama”
A-3 】

Naka-no Hashi Bridge

1 Oyama Jinja Shrine
Oyama

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Higashi Chaya District

Kanazawa Castle Park3

1076-262-5464 【 MAP“Nagamachi”B-3 】

7Kanazawa Kenko Plaza Otemachi/
Kanazawa Medical Federation Hall
(Tsuda Kuranosuke Residence Site) 【 MAP“Higashiyama”A-3 】

3Approximately 1.5 km from 1 to 51076-263-3640【 MAP“Nagamachi”B-2 】

Kuboichi Ototsurugigu Shrine
1076-221-2894 【 MAP“Higashiyama”A-2 】

Site of the Cho ResidenceWith an income of 33,000 koku, the Cho family, one of the “EightHouses,” the highest-ranking retainers of the Maedas, served as seniorpolitical advisors.

Ashigaru Shiryokan Museum

These two houses used to belong to ashigaru, or foot-soldier, families,
and have been relocated and restored to close to their original condition.
They are now operated by the city as a free museum for visitors tounderstand something of the lifestyle of the lowest-ranking samurai. Eachhouse is fully detached, and surrounded by a hedge rather than an earth
wall, while trees were planted in the grounds. One of the two houses,
belonging to the Shimizu family, was lived in by their descendents until
1990, while the other, belonging to the
Takanishi family, was lived in right up until
1994. Both houses were located in Hayamichimachi, now Saiwai-cho/Kikugawa 2-chome,which was where the Kaga Domain’s footsoldier messengers lived.

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Sekisuke Baba Monument 【 MAP“Higashiyama”A-1 】

This area used to be a riding ground (baba). Saga Sekisuke, a low-ranking
samurai in charge of horses and tackle, revived what had been an
abandoned ground during the rule of the third Lord Maeda in the early
17th century.

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Oyama Jinja Shrine

Originally located near what is now Kenrokuen, this temple was moved
to Mt. Utatsu in 1601, and then to its current location in 1616 at the wish
of Princess Tama, the wife of the third Maeda lord. Ever since,
generations of daughters of the Maeda family would visit to pray for safe
childbirth. Special sacred Noh plays were also performed here under thepatronage of the Maedas. The “46,000 Days” event, when a pilgrimage tothe temple is considered to grant the good fortune of 46,000 days’ worthof visits, has been held here annually since the Edo period. If you hangcorn bought at the temple that day under your eaves, it will keep yourfamily safe and bring prosperity to your business.

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Kannon-in Temple
1076-252-6523 【 MAP“Higashiyama”A-2 】

Strolling through the samurai quarter0

Nana-Ine Jizo 1076-252-7453 【 MAP“Higashiyama”A-2 】

Seven memorial Jizo statues
stand at the front gate of the
Jukyoji Temple. Three monthsof cold rains in summer 1858
had devastated the rice crop,
causing mass starvation andskyrocketing rice prices. Late atnight on July 11th, some 2,000
commoners climbed Mt.
Utatsu, from where they could look down over the castle – a forbidden
act. There they shouted out “Give us rice!” towards the lord in his castle.
As punishment for defying the law, the seven ringleaders were killed, but
the domain opened its granaries to feed the people, and these Jizo statues
were erected to pray for the repose of those executed men. Even today,
they are still offered the rice they were denied in life.

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Nagamachi district

Hosenji Temple 1076-252-3319 【 MAP“Higashiyama”A-2 】

This temple enshrines Marici, the guardian Buddha of swordsmanship, as
its principal icon. Lord Maeda was said to go off to war with an emblemof Marici hidden in his battle helmet. The “Five Pines” here featured in a
famous novel written by Izumi Kyoka, and the grounds offer a panoramicview of the city.

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Maeda Toshiie’s son
Toshinaga founded thisshrine in 1599 to venerate hisfather, but as it was notpossible under the Tokugawa
Shogunate’s laws to publicly
deify him, the deities from
the Mononobe Hachimangu
Shrine in what is now
Takaoka City (Toyama) andthe Sakakibara Jinmeigu Shrine in what is now Himi City (Toyama) weretransferred here, and the shrine was established to protect the “demons’gate” direction of the castle. In 1873, after the Tokugawa were
overthrown, the spirit of Toshiie was relocated to the new Oyama Jinja
Shrine, but the shrine still enjoyed the patronage of locals. Its name wasthus changed to Utasu Shrine, reflecting the old name for the hill behind
it. In 2004, Toshiie’s spirit was once again enshrined here after aceremonial division of his spirit from Oyama Jinja Shrine.

【 MAP“Nagamachi”
A-3 】

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Chuo Elementary School 【 MAP“Nagamachi”B-2 】

Site of the Murai ResidenceWith an income of 16,500 koku, the Murai family, one of the “EightHouses,” the highest-ranking retainers of the Maedas, served as seniorpolitical advisors.

ｉ Rest house (tourist information center)

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Saigawa Ohashi
Bridge7

Bus stop

Washrooms

Otebori
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Nishi Chaya District

Historical sites A B Present-day sites

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Onosho Waterway
West Outer Moat

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Tatsumi Waterway
East Inner Moat

Post office36West Inner Moat
East Outer Moat